HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE! Before we all die on Friday, or fall off the fiscal cliff or some shit like that, I have a special surprise for you. I had planned on having a new remix done for now, but getting ready for OverClocked University’s first show at MAGFest this year has really halted much progress elsewhere in life. So instead, what I’ve been gathering, released unto you: my current lossless collection!

Head on over to the new Lossless page, and enjoy! Right now its just remixes, but OHC entries and originals will be uploaded in the near future.

Well that was a very long and unintended break in keeping things updated here, wasn’t it? Not even sure how many people are checking the site at all these days. But if you so happen to actually be taking a look after 11 months of apparent inactivity, HORRAY FOR YOU! You are the best, you are awesome, you win the race. Or something like that.

So please bare (or is it bear? don’t know, but whatever it is, it sounds like it involved hairy things) with me as I start to update the site and get all of the stuff that I’ve worked on since the last update presented here. There will be much reorganization and further information on things, and I will start uploading all of my materials to more sites so that people can get them however they choose (bandcamp, youtube, direct download, etc. etc.). But consider this post to be your Cliff’s notes version to checking out lots of cool new things.

First, the feedback for NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming was phenomenal, and still is. I still get occassional messages from people thanking me for directing the album, amongst other things. I’m just very happy that people enjoyed it and everyone involved got something out of it. Still a surreal experience, and coming up on the year anniversary of its release causes a stunning revelation of how much has changed since then.

After NiGHTS finished up, I focused a lot more on OverClocked ReMix staff activities. Thanks to new processes and procedures put into place last year, the talented team over there was able to push out 11 albums in 12 months. That’s a metric fuckton of music, along with the regular mixposts. I’ve been assigned assorted activities behind the scenes, but I have mostly been dealing with staff organization and project coordination. It’s nice to give back to that wonderful community in a non-musical way, even if it can sometimes be as involving as having a second job. The staff folks, who by now are all close friends, make it totally worth it, even beyond seeing the fruits of the labor we put in.

Working with OA, DragonAvenger, Jade, Emunator, bLiNd, and Bahamut were all wonderful experiences, even if things can get a little heated at times. I’m very proud to have been able to help facilitate the production of these unique albums. I encourage you to check them all out if you have not done so yet.

OverClocked After Dark migrated to a live show format last Summer in order to help reduce the time, effort, and editing need to produce each episode. As a result, we’re up to Episode 105 now and have a steady weekly following of cool folks. The OCAD crew roster just keeps growing, and we welcomed Audun Sorlie (aka Akumu Audi) as a regular cohost and guests organizer. He’s been an awesome addition to the lineup, which follows in total:

Level 99 (Stevo)

Brushfire (David)

Epicenter (Deven)

Brian Spackle (Brian)

Lady Wildfire (Beth)

Audun Sorlie (Audi)

Vilecat (Valérie)

Viraldemon (Logan)

Cyril the Wolf (Connor)

We’ve been broadcasting on the 8bitX radio network, which has some other awesome shows such as Cyril’s Silly Show, 8bitsex with Lauren Goodnight, and more. Check it all out!

I’ver also started doing, along with fellow composer Ryan McQuinn, the original soundtrack to the Nerdy Show-produced podcast Dungeons and Doritos! Check out episodes here, and get the soundtrack here for free (or pay what you want, if you want to support Ryan and I getting new music gear to make even BETTER music!). The soundtrack gets updated as episodes are released, so check back every month or so for new material. Lots of different styles, character themes, variations, the whole works. The show itself is starting to remind me of a more comedic audio novel, or stuff in the vein of Mercury Theatre on the Air. EXCITING!

And finally that brings me to my original album(s). I’ve released an EP of material that I’ve been working on for an upcoming original album. The EP is called “A Taste of Things to Come”, and is also available as free or pay what you want. It’s meant to be merely a demo of what I’m shooting for, as all the songs will be more fleshed out and refined, and there will be more of them. The album will focus primarily on collaborations with other artists that I’ve worked with in the past, revamping old DDC entries and also new material. Besides that, I have two other concept albums in mind that I will start working on once the full other album is released. Originally, I was hoping to have it done by the end of Summer, but other obligations have interrupted the workflow and I no longer have an ETA for it. You all are willing to waiting until its good enough to release, right? OF COURSE YOU ARE! Check out the EP here: A Taste of Things to Come by Level 99

I’ve also had a number of mixes come out that I’ll have to update, and a whole bunch more coming out. I’m likely going to not participate in many more upcoming remix projects because I would like to focus both on other areas of interest as well as making fewer remixes but with better quality (and of games that I really want to remix). But who knows, that may change.

In my personal life, work has gotten very demanding of my time. This unfortunately has taken a toll on the amount of free time I have to dedicate to my hobby endeavours. I appreciate everyone’s patience and support through everything, and the best thing people can do is continue to check out this stuff and all the other cool things my friends are doing. Which means that I need to start a linklist and tell people who to awesomely check out for awesome things!

Well that’s it for now!

Also I got a dog and will hopefully be married soon. Married to my fiance, Valérie, not to the dog. Just…shut up already.

Before I even begin my rambling, first let me point you in the right direct: http://lucid.ocremix.org/ Go there, get the album, like it, tweet it, spread the word, torrent it, seed it, listen to it, and pretty much do whatever you want with it. I hope you enjoy it, and on behalf of everyone who worked on it, I thank you for listening.

Begin rambly portion of the post:

I started the Lucid Dreaming album at a peculiar time in my life. Final Fantasy 4: Echoes of Betrayal, Light of Redemption had just been released, which is the first OCR album that had a track done entirely by me (and looking back, seeing how far I’ve grown since then, I’m wondering why I even thought starting an album was a good idea at all). I was living in a townhouse with three other guys, graduated college the year before, and still getting a handle on life in-general, including improving my musical skills. The friends I had made through working on FF4 had given me enough confidence to attempt heading a remix album of my own. NiGHTS is a game that has meant a lot to me over the years, but little did I realize that through the course of creating this album I would find out just how many others like me were out there.

As the album got going, I actively recruited musicians to get on board the project. Some people weren’t on the project at first, like Dj Mokram and Ben Briggs, and some people who started on it ended up not being on the final project, like bLiNd and John Revoredo. It was a somewhat auspicious start to the project would end up consuming the 2 years of my life that followed.

Shortly after recruitment was underway, I started a search for the NiGHTS fanbase online. I had full intention of involving the fans. NiGHTS is a game which has been considered a “cult classic” for years, and I wanted to make sure I had their support, their feedback, and on top of that, their involvement in creating parts of it. I made a somewhat unassuming post on NiGHTSintodreams.com, and about a month after the thread was created, the site’s admins took notice of it. It is hard to believe that Niyazi, Lynne, and myself have probably passed some 500 odd emails between each other in those 2 years. It might be closer to 1000, but lets just say that those two have become very close friends of mine because of this album. They’re amazing people and I consider myself lucky to have had them on board, because this album wouldn’t exist as it does without their assistance.

The two years that followed were filled with ups and downs. I ended up meeting my fiancé while I was running this project, and I couldn’t have finished without her support. I’ve met a ton of amazing musicians and artists through this, and found myself to become part of the most sincere and heartwarming fanbase on the entire internet. We’ve even been able to get this back to the people who helped make the original game possible, and that is among this highest of goals a project like this can achieve.

I want to thank everyone who helped with the album, and who helped support it while in creation. And I want to thank, from the bottom of my heart, the people who get it and enjoy it. I’m not sure if I’ll ever do another album like this one, but the experience has changed my life in more ways that I can possibly count.

Well, it has been over two months since my last blog post. What have I been up to, you may wonder? Well, I’ll give a quick rundown.

I’ve been slowly working on some remixes. Yes, very slowly. There are many other things that have taken a higher priority than music lately. The highest priority for me right now is spending quality time with my fiance while she is in town. I’m cherishing every moment I get to spend with her. Besides that, I’ve been pulling my weight for OC ReMix album evaluations. We’ve gone through three thus far in the last two months, with two more on the slab and a few almost ready to eval. These take a lot longer to do than normal remixes because of the size of the listening, the scope of the project, and the necessity for numerous people to get their evaluations in. Plus the added time to give feedback to the directors if there are any issues. I’ve also been doing lots of OCR plannign stuff, getting things ready for OCR Live!, coordinating staff activities, and notating our biweekly staff meetings. Outside of OCR, my work still keeps me very busy. Finding time to relax with a walk with the Lady is something I’ve grown to value more and more.

But there’s one thing I’ve been working on which will soon be completed. 2 years ago, I started the NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming album. Next week, it will be released. This will be a huge weight off my shoulders and, from what I’ve seen and heard thus far, the album will be well-received. The physical copies came in and the necessary ones have been shipped out to people. Yuji Naka and Takeshi Iizuka received copies over the weekend, which was a totally surreal thing to have happen. Apparently, Iizuka had already heard of the project and requested more copies to give to the original music team for NiGHTS (Tomoko Sasaki, Naofumi Hataya, and Fumie Kumatani). Mind = Blown.

The trailer premiered at the Summer of Sonic convention over the weekend, and now the trailer is available online. Check it out, spread it around, and thanks to José the Bronx Rican for his fantastic video.

I’ve been working on this one for a while, and I just can’t keep it to myself anymore. It’s an all-acoustic arrangement of Bubbly Clouds from Kirby’s Dream Land. It’s very soothing and warm and smooth and all that good stuff. It is a gorgeous day outside, and I can’t help but listen to this song and smile in the sun.

Oh, and for those who celebrate it, happy Easter and/or happy Passover!

First, I’d like to announce that OC ReMix is putting out their 23rd album today. It’s from the Pokemon series (multiple generations) and is called The Missingno Tracks. It features one of my oldest remixes yet-to-be-released: the track was started almost four years ago. It also features a chill collab with Protodome, amongst many other awesome songs. The project itself has been going on for about five years, so it’s really nice to see it finally come to a close. The website should be accessible later tonight, but the trailer has already been released.

Speaking of OC ReMix, I’ve become increasingly involved with the website to the point where I’m organizing staff-related matters. Actively assisting in how the site runs has been a goal of mine for quite a long time, and it’s really good to be in the position where I can put good ideas to practice. This is one of the main reasons nearly all of my other free time has been whisked away, but I feel that it is worth it. The result is a better-running and happier community at OCR.

I’m still doing music, that definitely hasn’t changed, but it has slowed to a snail’s pace. I might even have to drop a remix or two in the interest of time and quality, because it would be unfair for the director and unacceptable by me to give something that I’m not happy with. But don’t worry, stuff is being done.

My Winter was, on the whole, super-awesome. I spent a week with my girlfriend at her home in Canada, and met her family. They were incredibly nice and welcomed me with open arms. After we came back to the States, I proposed. She said yes. We spent two weeks together before MAGFest and then she went back up North for her last semester of school. I’m missing her terribly every day, but I’m getting by.MAGFest was absolutely sick. The OCR and OCAD panels there rocked face harder than any previously. The OCR panel opened with a live performance of Wandered on the Offensive, performed by OA, diotrans, Cyril the Wolf, and myself. There was a killer video made for the performance by Cerrax, who worked on the original version of the track. Hopefully, a video of this performance goes up soon, because it was pretty awesome. I did the rhythm guitars and one of the solos. Everything about MAGFest was great, except the lines, the crowding, the parking, and the elevators.
The Lucid Dreaming project is coming along very well. All the music is done, and the artwork is approaching the 50% completion point. Donations were opened last month and have been going very well since that started. There’s still about a month left in the donation window, and I will be ordering the physical distribution almost immediately after that’s done. It’s going to be a really nice release. Thanks to everyone involved and who’s donated thus far.

Sometime in the next month or two, the Songs for the Cure 2011 will be released. It’s a Cancer benefit run by my friend and fellow musician, Josh Whelchel. I have a new remix on it. Well, that’s not exactly true….it’s a new version of a very very very OLD remix. I reapproached Dire Dire Docks similarly to how I did in the VGMix2.0 days, but the outcome is both similar and different. Definitely something to look forward to, and I encourage you all to donate to get both awesome music and to continue to support the fight against cancer.

Well, that’s about it for now. I hope to try and keep this place more up to date as time goes on. I revamped the site layout a bit and organized the remixes section completely, so it should have all my stuff there and much easier to navigate. Until next time!

Ugh, yeah, it really isn’t that quick. I really should post more info here on stuff that’s going on. The long weekend is coming up, so I’m going to try then. Just know that I’ve been plugging away at more things than I can remember, which probably indicates brain damage of some musical-related sort.

1) Last week, the Zelda: Link’s Awakening project, Threshold of a Dream, came out! FINALLY! Today was the listening party as well. I have a collab track on the project with Prophetik, which actually has the honor of being the title track of the album. Check it out here: The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening – Threshold of a Dream. The project is very deliberate in its style so I encourage you to close your eyes and open your mind as this is not the most upbeat project there is.

2) Just released the remastered version of Winter Dreamers EP. Let me say something about it: I originally had intended on teaming up with DiGi again to do an entirely new release this winter because last year’s project fared so well. However, due to time constraints on both ends, we weren’t able to secure enough time to dedicate to a new project. Lucid Dreaming, among other things, had taken up the majority of my time. However, throughout the last year, my ability to approach sound mixing has substantially improved (at least, in my own opinion), so I took what time I could over the last few months to go back and improve what we already had, including creating and bundling karaoke versions of two of the tracks. The result is a cut above last years release, and should be enough to tide people over to next Summer and next Winter as well. Check it out here: Winter Dreamers EP Remastered

More substantial update about things soon. Keep on rocking, especially now in the cold when the need for ear coverings is important!

Today is my girlfriend’s birthday. We met because of video game music, and we fell for each other in the process. So, for her birthday, I wanted to remix something that she loved. She’s a big fan of the Pokemon TCG soundtrack for the Gameboy Color, and the Water, Rock, and Psychic Clubs music is fantastic and calming. I’ve been working on this for a few months, with the help of Emunator on pianos and arrangement feedback (couldn’t have done it without his help!). Guitars are not a focal point, which is something unusual for me, but I wanted to push my limits to convey feelings that one can not express in words.

I’ll let the song speak for itself, actually. And to my girlfriend: Je t’aime a la folie. \